The World;A Neighborly Style Of Police State

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: June 4, 1995

MITO, Japan—
AS dozens of New York City police officers were wreaking havoc in Washington hotels last month, some of them running around naked and drunk and harassing other guests, Tokyo's finest were handing out umbrellas to people unexpectedly caught in spring showers.

And while American investigators struggle to unravel the Oklahoma bombing, the Japanese police appear to have pretty much wrapped up their investigation of the nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. The police have arrested more than 100 members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult -- albeit after having ignored Aum as it was allegedly murdering people in earlier years -- and have pressed some members into giving detailed confessions.

The Japanese police system is sometimes regarded, along with sushi and outdoor baths, as one of the country's finer achievements. Japan more or less invented community policing; its officers are widely respected and almost incorruptible -- and 50 percent more likely to solve crimes than American police. They also form a pillar of a justice system that has the lowest crime rates in the industrialized world.

Here in the city of Mito in eastern Japan, as in every Japanese city, each neighborhood has its own koban, or police box. A koban is typically a one- or two-room office squeezed on a street corner, staffed 24 hours a day by police officers called "omawari-san," or Honorable Walkabouts, since they spend much of their time strolling or bicycling about the neighborhood.

Genji Ohira, like the other omawari-san in Mita, advises homeowners how to avoid burglaries, makes teen-agers rip up and throw away their cigarettes -- "but in a trash can, not just on the ground" -- and does his part to try to inculcate public honesty. When a child turns in any "found" property, an omawari-san fills out the paperwork -- even if what is found is nothing more than a 1-yen coin, worth a bit more than a penny. The police also give the child a certificate or other reward for honesty.

"Kids sometimes turn in 1-yen or 10-yen coins," Mr. Ohira said. "Whatever they find, they turn it in, and we give them a notebook that says 'Police' on the cover.

"But sometimes kids think that they can just buy a notebook for 1 yen," Mr. Ohira added. "So we don't always give a notebook out a second time. We're flexible."

The building block of the police system in Japan is not the police station but the koban. The koban puts out a newsletter for the area, and an omawari-san is supposed to visit each home at least once a year.

In placid cities like Mito (population 240,000), those staffing the koban are omawari-san like Kazuo Urabe. He is a 20-year veteran who spends his time roaming the bar district from his koban, and says he has never drawn his gun except at a firing range.

"If I drew and fired, I'd probably never even hit the guy," Mr. Urabe laughed. Instead, he breaks up fights, helps drunken workers get home, lectures kids against hanging out in the wrong places, and occasionally gets a more interesting challenge. "I've caught two burglars so far this year," he said, with just a touch of boastfulness.

Powers to Act

Mr. Urabe, like other omawari-san, has broad powers. He can stop anybody who looks suspicious and ask that person to come to the koban for a "discussion." He can even ask people to empty their pockets.

The Japanese police also have the right to detain people for up to three weeks for questioning, and they sometimes rough up suspects, shout at them, deprive them of sleep, and do their best to make them feel guilty and to confess.

Because of these broad powers, the critic Karel van Wolferen has written about Japan as "the friendly neighborhood police state." There may be something to this. But one problem with interpreting Japan as a quasi-police state is that the biggest complaint against the police these days is that they were not aggressive enough, early on, in cracking down on Aum Shinrikyo.

Some police and scholars suggest that this is because the Japanese police are, despite appearances, much less powerful than American police; they are not, for example, usually allowed to infiltrate subversive organizations, to pay informers, to plea-bargain with defendants, or to tap telephones.

Perhaps a better explanation for the police hesitancy is insecurity about their democratic credentials. The police suppressed religion in pre-war days, and they are still nervous about poking around an organization that calls itself religious.

The police certainly are restrained in some respects. While officers are all trained in martial arts, they put little emphasis on the guns they carry. Indeed, it was the American Occupation authorities who forced the Japanese police to carry guns.

When it turned out that Aum had recruited some former soldiers and police officers, the Government announced that none of them could have been the hit man who shot the chief of the National Police Agency in March. The would-be assassin had hit the police chief three times with a handgun at a distance of 70 feet, and the Government explained with relief that no Japanese policeman or soldier is that good a shot.

No 'Pigs' Here

The omawari-san may not be able to hit the side of a barn with his gun, but nonetheless he is well-paid, well-trained and well-respected. There are no insults in Japanese corresponding to "pig" in English; when Japanese gangsters want to sound insulting about the omawari-san, they use words like "pori," derived from the English "police."

"Unlike in the West, the Japanese really trust the police," said Hisato Katoh, a law professor at Keio University. "This is because the police here went to a great effort. Before, they were condescending and obnoxious." After World War II, Japanese police officers cleaned up their image by being as polite as possible and by doing such things as lending umbrellas to people caught in the rain. The police also lend the equivalent of up to $20 to people who have lost their wallets or do not have money to get home. (The umbrellas and money are almost always returned, the police say.)

The police also have a big advantage over their American counterparts in that they have time to forge community links. Japan spends more of its gross national product on police than the United States does, even though it has many fewer crimes. The New York City police, for example, have to answer more than twice as many emergency calls as do the police in all of Japan.

Adopting the Japanese approach to policing in the United States would increase costs substantially. If the United States were to achieve the same ratio of police to crimes, staffing levels would soar. Dispersing the police in police boxes tends to cost more than keeping them in station houses.

And if American police started handing out umbrellas and $20 bills, imagine how often they would get them back.

Photo: Japan virtually originated the concept of neighborhood policing.A boy passes a koban, or police box, in Tokyo's Meguro district. (Fumiyo Ashai for The New York Times)